Essay; Hillary's Travels

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: June 22, 2000

''Congenital liar'' was the inflammatory phrase used in this space four years ago to describe Hillary Rodham Clinton's habitual departures from the truth. Bill Clinton promptly made known, through his press secretary, that were he not constrained by occupying the office of the president, he would punch me in the nose.

In a day or two, we should begin to learn whether the first lady deserves the repute imputed to her, or whether I deserve a pop on the proboscis soon after noon on Jan. 20, 2001.

That is because Robert Ray, the Independent Counsel who succeeded Ken Starr, is expected to submit his report on suspected abuses of power in the firing and subsequent unwarranted humiliation and prosecution of White House travel office employees as Clinton took office. It has long been suspected, and angrily denied, that this wrongdoing was personally instigated by Mrs. Clinton to make room for patronage to their Arkansas relatives and friends.

The report, mandated by law, will be sealed by the court until October to permit those mentioned in it to object to the prosecutor's judgments. No indictments are expected to be handed up, but when Ray's report on the firings is finally made public, we will see if a pattern of artful, lawyerly, deliberate deception -- wriggling away from admitting the truth just short of prosecutable perjury -- is shown to support my harsh characterization of long ago.

Testimony about her role in the harassment of the employees is in conflict. Mrs. Clinton and her lawyers submitted an affidavit to Congress professing a passive, peripheral part in the firings, swearing that ''Although I had no decision-making role with regard to the removal of the Travel Office employees on May 19, 1993, I expressed my concern . . . that if there were fiscal mismanagement in the Travel Office . . . it should be addressed promptly.''

That wasn't the half of it, according to a contemporaneous, ''soul-cleansing'' memo written by David Watkins, the White House aide told to dismiss the veteran employees occupying slots Mrs. Clinton wanted. He wrote the chief of staff ''we both knew there would be hell to pay'' if ''we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady's wishes.'' Mrs. Clinton had told him in no uncertain terms, ''We need those people out and we need our people in.''

Though he told his boss he had ''been as protective and vague as possible'' to investigators, Watkins drafted a confidential memo saying that ''[Vincent] Foster regularly informed me that the First Lady was concerned and desired action -- the action desired was the firing of the Travel Office staff.'' At Foster's direction, the aide spoke to Mrs. Clinton that evening, who conveyed to him directly ''her desire for swift and clear action to resolve the situation.''

Never happened, insists Hillary. Her lawyer's letter to the General Accounting Office states flatly that ''Mrs. Clinton does not know the origin of the decision to remove the Travel Office employees'' and that ''she did not direct that any action be taken by anyone. . . .'' (Italics mine.)

Later the whipsawed aide would affirm the truth of what he wrote at the time, but nervously added language pleasing to White House lawyers: ''She did not command me to fire them.'' (Italics mine.) Of course not; she was not a government official, and had no power to direct, order or command. But he got her message, and the employees got the gate.

Who cares about seven government workers? Why does this warrant years of investigation? Here's the significance: To cover up their desire to put cronies and a relative on the government payroll, the Clintons' White House induced an eager-to-please F.B.I. to launch and to wrongfully publicize an investigation of innocent people. This resulted in a politically motivated Reno Justice Department trial at which a disgusted jury acquitted the falsely accused in less than two hours.

Ever since, Hillary Clinton has been artfully (non-prosecutably) misleading us about her mean-spirited power abuse. Ray may show us how.

The humorist Mark Russell once kindly suggested that I had described this first lady merely as ''a congenial lawyer.'' Thanks, but if the travel office's patronage queen attends the next Inaugural as senator-elect, I'd be among the many holding their noses -- in my case, to protect it from ex-presidential retribution.